


pumpkin spice and everything nice

by all_these_ghosts



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, PSL, The X-Files Revival, this is real goofy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:57:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8284985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_these_ghosts/pseuds/all_these_ghosts
Summary: The internet isn't good for Mulder, except when it is.





	

He calls her on a dark, chilly October morning. It’s five-thirty, so Scully’s been awake for half an hour, but if Mulder’s up this early it means he’s been up all night.

“What’s the deal with this pumpkin spice thing?” he asks without preamble as soon as she picks up the phone.

He’s said one sentence and she already has a headache. She pinches her nose, willing it away. “ _What_?”

There’s crunching in the background. Sunflower seeds. That noise was the soundtrack to her life for twenty years, she’ll never mistake it. “I keep seeing stuff about it online. That all women like pumpkin spice things. Is that true?"

"Mulder, what are you reading?”

Clicking noises. “Um. Buzzfeed.”

“If you’d just stick to the newspaper you wouldn’t have these problems.”

“Scully,” he whines, dragging out the second syllable. There’s that headache again. “I’m trying to keep up with the youth.”

“That’s a fool’s errand.” She puts the phone on speaker and sits down at the counter, stirring a packet of stevia into her coffee. To tell the truth, she’s always relieved when he calls. For a month after she moved out she didn’t hear a word from him, and she spent an embarrassing percentage of those hours worried about him. Mulder calling her about various inane topics at absurd hours seems like some kind of equilibrium for them. “I don’t really know what you’re looking for here. It tastes like pumpkin pie, I guess.”

“So why don’t they call it that?”

She rolls her eyes. “I have no idea, Mulder. Obviously.”

“Do you like them? The Starbucks things?”

Scully can’t tell where this is going, and that makes her nervous. “Buzzfeed said that all women like them, right? And I’m a woman, so…”

“It’s hard to tell if you’re being sarcastic when I can’t see you.”

“I’m being sarcastic. I don’t think I’ve had one.”

“Do you want to go get one?”

She glances at the time again. “Right now? With you?” This is not a time of day when Mulders go into the wild without a very good reason. Buying her coffee doesn’t seem sufficient.

“Yeah,” he says, and he sounds so confident that she’s almost convinced. What harm could it do, really? It would be nice to see him. Coffee doesn’t mean anything. Hell, she gets coffee with Skinner. She gets coffee with co-workers she secretly hates. She can get coffee with Mulder.

Some inner voice says, _two steps forward and one step back_ , but she ignores it. “Sure,” she says. “I’ll go get a coffee with you.”

“A pumpkin spice latte,” he clarifies, and then she hears a knock on her door.

Of course.

He’s standing outside her door in that leather jacket and jeans, with an amount of scruff that looks intentional. This time apart is looking good on him, and she won’t pretend it isn’t painful.

Still. Here they are. “What if I’d said no?” she asks, slipping on her shoes and joining him in the hall.

Mulder shrugs and smiles at her. “I’m trying optimism these days.”

“And flavored coffees, apparently.”

“Those, too.” He glances at her, suddenly serious. “I’m trying, generally.”

She takes his hand and squeezes it, then lets it go. “I’m glad.” And she is.


End file.
